Bento catch-up post!

I haven't posted bento pics in AGES. I've got 9 new pictures, but rather than post them all, I'll post my two favorites, and include a link for anyone interested in seeing the rest.


Sweet potato crabs over pork and eggplant donburi
Veggie Spring rolls
Red Bean Mochi
Green Salad with vinaigrette dressing in the sauce carrot


Inari sushi with brown rice
Lemonade cake with red sprinkles
Baby Bel cheese
Cucumber hearts
Teriyaki Pork over greens

If you'd like to see my other unposted bento pics, please visit my LJ scrapbook at http://pics.livejournal.com/wombatgirl/gallery/0000sceh?page=3&.view=grid

Tomorrow I tackle squid for the first time. Whee!

The Bento Fairy visited my house over Christmas. Besides leaving my hubby a new bento box and me two beautiful garnish cutters, we had a fuzzy logic rice cooker find its way to my kitchen! I'm all excited about this, and I'd especially like to try some rice porridge dishes, but I don't have any recipes for those.

Does anyone have any rice porridge recipes for the fuzzy logic rice cookers?

I love this picture - you can see the steam rising off the curry!


Top Tier:
Carrot Hearts
Soy Fish
Pork & Onion Curry

Bottom Tier:
Black Rice
Carrot Star
faux crab accents

Side Containers:
Marinated Mozzarella cheese
Mini berry muffins
Almond Squares

I didn't like the black rice as much as I was hoping to, but I liked the curry more than I hoped I would. (I tend to not be a curry fan, but my sweetie loves it, so I made some). I was worried the rice would stain the bento box, but *phew* it didn't.

Last few catch-up bento
( Come look at the pretty pictures..! )

Ok - I have the time to sneak in another update (sorry if anyone is getting sick of me, but I have a backlog I want to post, and not much time at work to update!)


Top Tier: Two egg onigiri, two onigiri wrapped in thin omelets and filled with sweet bean paste. (I tried to cut a heart into one, and it didn't really work well. Made with brown rice. (Divided by carrot hearts)

Bottom Tier: Apple Usagi! (My first!) and two chicken sausage rolls. (Divided by carrot hearts)

Side dishes: Lemon and blackberry yogurt, black olives, and a carrot heart

Slowly catching up on my past lunches

Here's a soup based one, where you can't actually see the soup.



I brought the soup in a small tupperware container along with the Totoro bowl set, because it needed to be microwaved. So here's all the stuff that went with it.

In the bowl - a container full of a cheese and herb sprinkle for the top of the soup.

Side dish container - olives and a baby bell cheese

Top Container - Garlic Duck rice. I was trying to work off memory for mmmbento's garlicky rice, but I got the proportions wrong, and didn't add anywhere near enough garlic. It was kinda boring, but not bad. Just a little bland.

Bottom container - Star-shaped sweet potato casserole surrounded by fresh spinach.

Not pictured: An incredible winter squash soup I had leftovers of (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/2997). I added white pepper and ginger to the final recipe. It was lovely. I strongly recommend the soup - it was lovely.

Finally got my butt in gear and downloaded the last two week's worth of Bento pictures. Don't worry, I'll spread them out rather than post them all at once!


From Left to Right
Teriyaki chicken
Fruit Cocktail (the in the heart cups)
Stir-fried asparagus
Mu Shu Pork (left overs)
Rice with furikake

( More days, including one of the coolest fishes I've ever done! )

So as I was making my lunch this morning, I was thinking about this community, and wondering how people pick their bento boxes,and if my obsession which has led me to get 5 boxes is healthy and/or normal. ^-^
So I hope you don't mind, but I made a poll to find out just that. If this isn't allowed, please delete.

Poll #879510 Bento Boxes
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 121

How many Bento Boxes do you own?

What do you consider very important when picking a Bento Box

Of the previous factors, which is the most important to you for picking a new Bento Box?

This week has just been busybusybusy. And I ended up getting sick in the middle of it, so most of the bento were leftovers bento. But I think they turned out pretty decent anyway.


Left to right:
Carrot with a soy-based dipping sauce
Dolmati
Cucumber butterflies surrounding a container with roasted pumpkin seeds
Yakiudon with pork, broccoli and lotus root


Side Dishes:
Cucumber butterflies
Strawberry yogurt

Top Tier:
Dolmati decorated with carrot stars
Carrot with a soy-based dipping sauce

Bottom Tier:
Honey Chicken (from my local Chinese restaurant)
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Moo Shu Pork (from my local Chinese restaurant)


Fishy! New box, and I love it.

Large Fish:
Broccoli sauteed with teriyaki sauce
Jasmine Rice with furikake

Small Fish:
Omlete Rolls
Teriyaki Tuna

Not pictured:
Snap Peas
Tapioca pudding

Next week, since I've got most of the week off, I don't know how many bento I'll make. Hopefully we'll have some left over duck to use after Thanksgiving.

Got some time today, so I don't have to do the entire week in one go. These were my two latest lunches:


Top Tier:
Stir fried rice with chicken, shimeji mushrooms and hoisin with a shooting star carrot

Bottom Tier:
Octodog
Black Olives on a lobster pick
Cucumber stars
a few slices of basil and garlic gouda

Not pictured - lemon yogurt.


My new box arrived last night, so as it's one of the Totoro bowl sets, we had soup to celebrate!
Soup Bowl:
Miso ball
Wakame seaweed
(I packed this in a side dish container for transport)

Bottom Tier:
Fish shaped onigiri
faux crab
grapes

Top Tier:
Pumpkin seeds
Dipping sauce
mini-cheese
carrot butterflies

Side Container:
Cucumber butterflies

I love getting new Bento toys!

I usually only do bentos for lunches while I'm at work during the week. However this weekend, my chorus had a day-long rehearsal. They told us to bring lunches, so of *course* I wanted to bring a pretty bento and show off!


In no particular order:
Three egg onigiri
Teriyaki chicken
A chicken hoisin bun
Multi-sized carrot flowers
the last of my white asparagus
and a few pieces of lettuce for decor.

JoAnne's is having a veteran's day sale, their scrap-booking supplies are 40% off - and then I had a coupon for an additional 10% off, so I got two new punches. I really like them...

I get tomorrow off, and so I present to you, a week in lunches.

Monday:

Yakiudon with pork, lotus root, broccoli, carrot stars, and shimeji mushrooms (yum!)
A sauce carrot with a sauce for the yakiudon
Chicken sausage rolls
Cucumber stars
Apple stars
Baba Ganoush in the lower right corner.

Tuesday:

Bottom Tier:
Brown rice with furikake

Top Tier:
Teriyaki Salmon
Broccoli with Oyster Sauce
White Asparagus
(a few banana chips hiding in the corners)

Wednesday (Leftover day!)

Bottom Tier (which happens to be on the top of the pic)
Roast Pork fried rice

Top Tier:
Banana Chips
Beef with Broccoli
Omelet Rolls
A cup with dipping sauce

Side dish:
Lemon and Blackberry Yogurt

Thursday (my visual favorite of the week):

Tortilla/cream cheese rollups (with dill - very nice)
Cucumber flowers
Black Olives
Red grapes (the grapes are smaller than the olives and outside of the foil cup)
2 egg onirigi
1 plain onigiri
baby corn
lettuce
a lobster pick which I used to chase the grapes around the dish as I worked.

And tomorrow, I intend to sleep until lunch - no bento needed! :)

Wow - I got busy last week! I wasn't able to post pics, so I'll post 'em now.

I got a new Nori punch - can you tell?


In the upper section:
Three onigiri - one with pork bits, one with furikake, and one plain.
White asparagus
Mini Cheese
A quail egg hiding behind the cheese

Lower Section:
Three pork and mushroom patties on a bed of lettuce
Pork Hoisin bun





Top section:
Brown rice onigiri - plain
On a bed of spinach
A half-grape

Bottom section:
Three store-bought gyoza
more half-grapes
baby corn
cucumber flower
Rolled egg omelet sections

Side dish containers
Cucumber flowers
apple flowers
kiwi flower (Lots of flower mileage today!)
another half-grape. Those things were HUGE





Top section:
Miso Pork and Eggplant Donburi over rice

Bottom Section:
Spinach
Baby Corn
Baba Ganoush (in the container)

Side container:
Blackberry yogurt with dried berries on top

Today I made my first yakiudon - pictures later. I also ordered a few new boxes (I got a bonus at work.) I can't wait!

I've been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, so I didn't get to do a halloween bento. Wah! Ah well. Maybe I'll do one in the middle of November, just for the heck of it.

Here's what I have had time for this week.


I tried the sushi rice casserole from Naomi Kijima's book, and I wasn't that fond of it. That's what's on the right (and why the rice looks a little funny). I do like how the little kitty turned out tho.
On the left we have a chicken hoisin bun, octodog, baby cheese, giant grapes, a heart shaped egg and pumpkin candy on a bed of spinach.


Bottom tier: Rice with carrot and nori notes
Top Tier: Green salad with dressing in a little elephant cup. Pork and eggplant doburi-ish stuff. I was trying to recreate a recipe I had at Dragonfly in San Francisco when I was visiting my mother. Not quite there, but it was good!
Side Containers: Kiwi fruit. Baby Cheese, pumpkin candy, and candy eyeballs (in honor of the day)

Finally posting my Friday bento

My first octo-dogs!!!

And sleeping onigiri, tucked into their beds.!

The onigiri are filled with faux crab and avacado. Other elements are:
Beef rolls on a lobster pick
Dried apricots, figs, and cranberries
Octo-dog made from a Johnsonville sausage, because regular hotdogs scare the snot out of me
Quail eggs
pickled baby corn
all on a bed of fresh spinach.

It was a really good lunch. I had been a little worried to do an octo-dog, not knowing if they'd work with non-hot dog sausage.

Has anyone ever tried to do a lobster out of a hotdog/sausage?

My first bento with noodles. I ended up just bringing cold noodles, rather than making any sort of yakiudon - although that looks lovely.

Udon noodles, with a light drizzle of sesame oil. There's a sauce in the carrot (it's actually a tempura dipping sauce, but it was pretty yummy with the noodles).
Other box has teriyaki chicken with asparagus, sesame spinach, and acorn squash cut into flowers.
Side dish containers are mandarin oranges and chicken sausage rolls.

The food was really good, but I don't like how I did presentation at all. But I couldn't go back and do it all again - I had to go to work. Bah.

Question for any of you who have worked with quails' eggs - do you ever get any that are discolored? I was going to have one with the lunch, but I had a slight peeling mishap, so I gave the one that was left to my husband. (I make us both lunch) It had black spots on it, but didn't smell like it was over the hill or anything. Does that ever happen to them? Or did we get a really weird one?

I finally found a market in Kansas City that carries things like aburage and shimeji mushrooms. And then, to make it even better, I looked in their housewares section and they had two bento boxes! So I got this one, and had to try it out.

Chicken and Tofu Rice
Chicken Hoisin Bun
Black Olives
Plum Slices and pear hearts
Sauteed Asparagus (so good!)
Sweet Potatoes


Right before this one I got a shipment of bento supplies in - some egg molds, sauce bottles and cups, and onigiri molds. So I had to try out the egg molds, even though my eggs were the wrong size, and I had to bring soy sauce today, even though nothing I made really needed it.

Top Tier:
Pork and Eggplant Donburi (SO INCREDIBILY YUMMY!!! Although it really isn't very photogenic)
Snow peas with carrot hearts
Carrot shaped sauce container

Bottom Tier:
Brown Rice
Heart cutouts of fake crab
Heart Nori sprinkles

Side dishes:
Blackberry and vanilla yogurt
Kalamata olives and a fish-shaped egg

Tomorrow, the plan is to experiment with udon noodles for my first time in a bento - any advice for me?

Not a very balanced lunch today, but still pretty yummy.

Smoked Salmon Onigiri, black olives, honeydew, cucumber hearts, celery, chicken sausage rolls (in the paper cup), and mushroom pork dumplings.

I was having fun with my paw-shaped punch today. I used it on the dumpling wrapper as well as the one onigiri wrapper.

Whoo-hoo! My very first official bento boxes! They just arrived from JList.









Details of the menus behind the cut. I was surprised how small they were - when the box arrived, I assumed they only shipped half of my order! :) However, I seem to be getting quite a bit in here, and I think I'm getting the hang of trying to make them almost pretty.

What do you think?

( Details )

Here's my most recent Bentos!



( More Info )

I just made my first real bento!



( Details and more pics )